The Party and the Rowboat

I have mentioned a few times before that I grew up in the middle of nowhere (too many times? Sorry, it’s important to the story…and most of my stories). It was a small community, and many of my neighbours were only around in the summer, as I lived on a lake and it was very popular for cottagers.

Growing up, my favourite times in my neighbourhood were long weekends. All the cottagers were up, so I always had my friends over and we always had new people to hang out with (read: boys).

On one August long weekend when I was 17, I had my friend Dawn over for the weekend and we were bored! In a rare occurrence, none of the regular cottagers were up, and we were just sitting around my house with nothing to do.

It was a beautiful evening, so we decided to go for a walk by the lake to see if we could see anyone out having fun.

(Just a note, my house had the best stars, and I miss them so much.)

As we were walking, we started to hear a commotion coming from across the lake. We could hear music, and people yelling. It sounded like a PARTY!

Jackpot. A party was exactly what we were looking for.

And here is how we envisioned the party:

We wanted to go to that party. We had to get to that party. It became our mission.

We started walking along the lake towards the direction of the party. Along the way, we found a boat launch. We went out onto the dock to get a better feel for exactly where the party action was going down.

We still couldn’t really see anything, but we were in kind of a bay, and the party sounded like it was coming from almost directly on the other side of it.

So how could we get there…

If we took the road, or even walked along the lake, it would take us at least an hour. If only we could somehow go directly across the bay. Obviously we couldn’t swim there, and we didn’t have a boat…

We turned around, dejected, thinking it was just too far to walk.

And then we saw it.

An old, beat up rowboat. It was just sitting by the edge of the lake.

It was a miracle! We figured we could just borrow the rowboat, row to the party, which was just a quick jaunt across the bay, check it out for a bit, and safely row back and return the rowboat before anyone even realized it was missing. Problem solved!

We were already picturing ourselves making a grand entrance at the party in our rowboat.

It was going to be awesome.

We got into the clunky little beast, and started rowing in the direction of the party. All went well for the first few minutes (as it often does, if you think of the stupid tree pulley, and the subway door), and we had a great time rowing our little boat.

But then…

We started to notice a significant amount of water accumulating in the bottom of the boat.

We continued to row, hoping it was just a tiny, slow leak…but the boat continued to fill steadily with water. Our rowing became more frantic.

The boat continued to fill with water to the point that we were concerned about whether or not we would make it to the party at all. It was a real possibility that the boat might sink and leave us stranded in the middle of the bay.

We had nothing to bail the water out with, so we tried using our hands, but to no avail.

We continued to row like madmen, and eventually we made it to the dock of the party. By this time our boat was almost completely under water.

The scene was not unfolding as we had planned, and it was not the arrival we had been anticipating, but we were fully prepared to roll with the punches and play the damsels in distress role.

We got out of the rowboat and clambered onto the dock. The boat sank to the bottom of the lake.

And we were greeted by the party attendees, who were very friendly. But not as we had pictured…

Yep, it sank to the bottom of the lake so there wasn’t really anything we could do but leave it there. There actually ended up being an article in my neighbourhood’s newsletter about the missing rowboat but I left it out of the story because I found it took away from the “climax” and made it too long.

I don’t get it! What 17 year old girl doesn’t want a 40 yr old man with a mullet??

OMG!! This is hilarious. I love all of your stories and this would have to be at the top of the list. I mean, how disappointing to find the mullet men and THEN have to walk home cause you sank a stolen boat – I can’t stop laughing as I write this (thanks again for the coughing fit).

My favourite story is the Indian Ghost – your poor dad telling everyone at work about it (hahahahah), but his is a close second – love it 🙂

Bahaha – “Not adventurous, did not row to party”
You are awesome.
And that’s slightly creepy with the 40 year old men with mullets, but I would have done the same thing in search of cute boys when I was 17.

Helarious as always! I wish we had been friends in high school. I would have been all over chasing down parties with imagined cute boys. I love that your boat almost sank and you had to walk home! And of course they ended up being 40 year old mullet guys.
I love the comic where you guys are listening for the party, where you are high-fiving and the party noises, (still partying, best time ever!). Keep the stories rolling. I love them!

I so wish I knew you in high school. You would have been an awesome cute boy chaser partner in crime 🙂
Well if the boat didn’t have a leak and the party did turn out to be full of cute boys, the story just wouldn’t be as good.
Thanks muffin, I really enjoy doing them.

Welcome!

Thanks for popping by! My name is Lindsey, and I pretty much have two moods: happy, or hungry. I like to tell stories and draw pictures of my adventures. I will do just about anything to make someone laugh.

Contact me!

Feel free to email me at happyorhungry [at] gmail [dot] com with any questions or feedback. I'd love to hear from you!

happyorhungry on Instagram

3 days agoby happyorhungryPacking all the winter activities into one long weekend! Continue reading →

1 week agoby happyorhungryI’m very excited to be celebrating my first Valentine’s Day with my HUSBAND! (even though we’re not really doing anything exciting.) Five years ago Evan and I were celebrating our first V-Day together after dating for about two months. We were in my tiny apartment and he made me a ridiculous dinner and decorated the table all romantically—the table that he dragged in from my balcony, cleaned up and set up in my living room because I didn’t actually have a dining table or an eating space at the time. I don’t know where I’m going with this but I…